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Caleb Gossard
Caleb Gossard is a character on Plagued. He was created January 6, 2012, by Kat. Personality At times Caleb appears to be a collected, reserved individual with deep insight and carefully chosen words. He is intelligent and sensitive, empathetic to the feelings of the people around him. Accepting and inclusive, perhaps even to a fault which often leaves him too trusting and vulnerable. Other times he is the very opposite: selfish, moody, and opinionated. He can be argumentative, simply because he is not in the mood to be disagreed with. Rants and accusations during these periods are thoughtless and unkind. And then he’ll storm off, seeking seclusion to go with black despair and anger. His moods haven’t always been so polar. In fact, if there were any around who knew Caleb longer than three years, they would find these bursts a disturbing development in his personality. Prior to the uprising Caleb was almost always pleasant. He had his music and his friends, and that was enough. He was genuinely happy, wanting for nothing even though he didn’t have much. He thrived on the experience of community and friendship. However, Caleb has seen his seen his friends and loved ones destroyed by the outbreak, and it has caused a fundamental change in him. His worst fears, those of failure and solitude, have been realized. He has yet to really deal with the loss of his older brother; the thought has been too much to confront. Now he harbors a deep sadness, blacker than any disappointment he has known before. Things that remind him of his old life send him spiraling into periods of depression and anger. Caleb does try his best to remain upbeat, but often this comes across seeming forced and awkward. Anyone who can get past the occasional flakiness will find in Caleb a genuine and warm person. History Caleb was the middle child of three, coming two years after his older brother, Stone. In another five years the third son David was born: the golden child. At seven and five, the two older boys felt the sting of favoritism as they were soon left to themselves. The two became very close and spent much of their childhood and teens inseparable. When they became interested in music in their early teens, they relied on saved allowances to buy a guitar. The parents refused to spend money on such a “silly” and “idle” hobby, and anyway, they expected this to be a fleeting fascination. On the contrary, Stone and Caleb both became talented musicians and decided to pursue careers as performers after high school. Shortly after his graduation Stone left home and gifted to Caleb the acoustic guitar they shared for years. (This is the same he plays on today, cherishing it all the more now that his brother is gone.) They kept in touch, but Stone never bothered coming home to visit, only further convincing mom and dad how much of a disappointment he was. It was not so surprising when Caleb left in much the same manner, first sleeping on the couch in Stone’s apartment, and later into his own as his high school friends left home as well. Caleb quickly lost touch with his parents and younger brother. Even as he landed a day job selling instruments, and a spot as a house performer at a local club, they waited for him to grow up, cut his hair, and “get a real job”. By the time he turned twenty-one, the family hadn’t spoken in a year. Even in the aftermath of the uprising, Caleb thought only fleetingly of his parents, and noted dully that he did not feel sadness for them. Caleb lived in a rented townhouse with a few friends, sort of stuck in a lower-middle class situation but grateful for what he had. There were a few casual lovers, none of them too serious. Besides the four friends, the place tended to be a veritable revolving door of people staying for days or weeks and moving on again. Maybe Caleb knew them; then again, maybe they were strangers. The only constant was that there was never a shortage of company. It didn’t take long for the place to empty out after the uprising. He and his remaining housemates began listening intently to television and radio reports about a place called the “Safe Haven” where people were congregating in an attempt to gain some sort of footing in the chaos. Caleb made a phone call to Stone. The plan was to meet the next day and all go together to this old army base. But Stone never showed. Caleb convinced his friends to wait another week, then two, for Stone. Then they were gone, too. One simply walked out the front door and down the block, saying another word or showing his face again. The last roommate simply disappeared overnight. When he saw no one for almost a week, and as hysteria began to take hold, Caleb packed a change of clothes and his acoustic into the nylon case and headed out alone for the “Safe Haven”. The two-day trip was hell. Not only was Caleb alone, devastated, and frightened, but he was also set upon by Lessers and thieves seeking an easy target. Armed with naught but a baseball bat and running on an adrenaline rush which wouldn’t let him sleep, Caleb arrived at the base looking like a battered refugee. His clothes were stained with dirt and blood, and his soul was stained far worse. Given his vocation and interests in poetry, books, and writing, Caleb has few practical skills that are useful in the world he lives in today. He has no training in the use of any weapons, formal or otherwise. He is not particularly athletic, and has only the most basic survival skills, the latter mostly consisting of intuition coupled with dumb luck. Realizing his virtual uselessness to the group dynamic, he is eager to learn from anyone who is willing to teach him. He spends his days alternately playing scraps of songs on his guitar and tinkering around on the vehicles around the base. Caleb is also seeking a reliable person to train him in the use of handguns. Until then, he steers clear of these. Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Active Category:Humans